I worked out and practiced hard because I wanted to be good at something. No. Not just good at something. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to stand out. I wanted those fuckin’ high school snobs to look at me and say, “That’s Francis Hoyt. The wrestler. He’s fuckin’ state champ.” I loved it when I pinned some asshole and heard “one, two, three,” and that slapping sound on the mat that signaling victory. I even got good enough to go to the state’s. Got all the way to the semi-finals and then got beat by this kid. Not because he was better than me—I should have whipped his ass—but because he had better coaching. But I held my own and figured the next year I’d just work that much harder and then I’d pin that sonuvabitch or anyone else I faced and I’d hear that slap of victory again.
There was no next year for me. I lost interest. I quit school. Make no mistake, I was good. Good enough to win it all, if I’d kept at it. Good enough to be the best damn wrestler in the damn state. But I had other things to occupy my time. Something I had a natural knack for. Something I could be the best ever at.
Listen, I know I’ve got a lot of anger in me—I don’t need a shrink to tell me that—but I’m not a violent guy by nature. It’s always a last resort. But sometimes you got to go there. You might have to prove a point or get an advantage, or protect yourself. That’s when violence is necessary. And when it is, I’m not afraid to use it.
I’m not stupid. Violence can wind up backfiring on you by raising the stakes and calling attention to yourself. That’s not something you want. You want to be invisible. You want to blend in, not stand out. So, I don’t go out of my way to get into a fight. But if I have to, I can hold my own against anybody. I don’t fight clean. I take any advantage I can get. I hurt the other guy before he can hurt me. That’s what got me through my time in the joint. I think quick, I act quick. No one messed with me once they found out it they might lose an eye or get a nose busted. Respect. That’s what I got. That’s what I earned.
When I first got to the joint some low-life wise-ass said, “Hey, Shorty, welcome to my world.” I can read between the lines. I knew what that meant. But I wasn’t going to be anyone’s doll-baby, so the first chance I got I confronted the dude in the yard, who was maybe half a foot taller than me and twice as wide, and said in a nice even voice, but in a tone everyone around me could hear, “Don’t you ever fuckin’ call me Shorty.” Then I ripped into him and wound up kicking the crap out of him. No one ever called me “Shorty” again.
I remember the look on my old man’s face the first time I stood up to him. I was what, maybe fifteen, sixteen, and I’d done something to piss him off, like maybe look at him the wrong way. That’s all it took. He was drunk, as usual, so his reflexes weren’t the best. I saw his hand ball into a fist and he started to bring it up. I was way too quick for him. Instead of running away, like I usually did, I just stood there. I watched his hand, which seemed to move in slow motion. When it was no more than six inches from my face I ducked to the side. He lost his balance and as he fell forward I socked him on the cheek with a right, then, as he started to fall like a fucking tree in the forest, I punched him back with a left.
I didn’t hurt him much, even though I wanted to. But the shock of my fighting back was much worse than the blows themselves. From that day on, the sonuvabitch never raised a hand to me and I learned a valuable lesson. Fear is the best offense and best defense. You don’t necessarily have to use force, you just have to make sure the other guy knows you’re not afraid to do whatever it takes to win. That’s how you established dominance and control.
Once inside the house I’m careful to make sure I’m not heard or seen. But you can’t make the mistake of thinking you can control everything all the time. The unexpected can happen. Like the time that little girl, hell, she couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, popped out of her room dressed in her pajamas holding onto her little Barbie doll. She probably thought I was the fuckin’ boogeyman of her worst nightmares. She takes one look at me and screams. I already had the goods, so all I had to do was get out of there quick, and the quickest way was diving through an open window at the end of the hall. I landed on my feet, on the roof of the porch, then shimmied down the column and in the darkness, I ran the mile and a half through backyards and empty lots to where my car was parked, jewels worth a quarter of a million dollars stuffed in my pockets.
You’re nothing if you don’t learn from your mistakes and from then on, I always wore a black ski mask.
I’m always a gentleman. I’m not there to frighten or intimidate anyone. I’m a professional. I’m there to do a job, to get the goods and get out. I don’t carry a weapon. That only leads to trouble. If you carry you’ve got to be prepared to use it and someone’s bound to get hurt.
That time in Florida where I wound up getting pinched just proved my point.
After I got out of the joint, I swore I’d go straight. I probably meant it at the time. But a week later I was at it again. Only now, evolving like one of those creatures that slithered up from the ocean to dry land, I drastically changed my way of doing business.
Charlie Floyd
I’m an early riser. Probably the result of way too many years getting to work by 8:00 a.m. That’s when the office was quietest, a time when I found I could get the most work done because no one was around to distract me. That or staying late, after eight o’clock in the evening, when you could fire a cannon in that place and hit no one except maybe me. Focus. I needed complete focus. Time to think, to plan, to get into the mind of whoever I was chasing after. Time to understand what they did, how they did it, why they did it, and what they might do next.
I showered then headed down to the kitchen. Manny’s door was closed. I figured he was still asleep and there was no reason to wake him. I’d just started the coffee brewing when Manny, dressed in a seersucker suit and polka-dot tie, his black hair even blacker than usual, as if he’d applied some product or it was still wet from the shower, appeared at the doorway. His attire was in stark comparison to my faded blue sweatpants, a maroon UConn T-shirt with small holes at the shoulders, my hair rumpled, my face reflecting two days straight of not having shaved. Maybe Manny was right. Maybe I did need something to get me the hell out of the house. I was probably one step away from getting a cat to keep me company and we all know what that leads to.
“Ah, there is nothing quite like the smell of fresh coffee in the morning, Charlie Floyd. Good morning, my friend.”
“And good morning to you, too. You know, Manny, we usually don’t dress for meals around here. Every day is casual Friday at casa Floyd.”
“Today we are going to work. This is the way I dress when I go to work. When I play, maybe I dress like you, but today is a momentous day. It is the first day of our investigation.”
“Okay, I hear you. Sit down. How about something to eat? I can rustle up some eggs. Or I think I’ve got cold cereal up there in the cabinet. An English muffin? If you’ve got a hankering for fruit, though, I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place.”
He smiled. “Just coffee, thank you very much.”
“My grandma used to say breakfast was the most important meal of the day.”
“I am sure your grandmother was a very smart woman, Charlie Floyd, but I am just not very hungry at the crack of dawn. I must work up a hunger before I am ready to eat.”
“To be honest, she wasn’t all that smart. She just had an awful lot of advice to hand out, most of it pretty useless. You could’ve slept in. We don’t punch a time clock around here.”
“No. We have work to do. The sooner we start the sooner we will catch Francis Hoyt and I can return home.”
Before I turned in last night Manny handed me a folder. “Bedtime reading,” he called it. It was filled with pages of information about Francis Hoyt and his illustrious career. It went all the way back to petty thievery when he was a kid. Manny had put this dossier together all by himself and it was quite impressive.
At first, I was reluctant to get invol
ved but after reading up a little on Hoyt—sleep sabotaged me before I could get halfway through—I was hooked. It wasn’t even for the reward from the insurance companies that Manny mentioned before he turned in. I didn’t even ask Manny how much it was. I didn’t care, even though Manny insisted it would be all mine. I protested but he explained, “I am on the job, Charlie Floyd, therefore it would not be proper for me to have a financial gain for simply doing the job I am paid to perform.”
There was no arguing with Manny. I tried, but he kept shaking his head and saying, “The money is all yours, Charlie Floyd. All yours. For me, it is enough to put an end to Francis Hoyt’s life of crime.”
Truth is, I could use the money. The dough I was getting from my state pension wasn’t all that much. And there were things I wanted to do, like travel, maybe even purchase a small boat. But Manny was right. Even more important, I needed something to get me out of bed every morning, other than reading the headlines in the newspaper and watching Matt Lauer interview the latest movie star who spends his or her off-screen time feeding the hungry in Africa. Manny, my little Cuban angel from heaven, was giving me that reason.
And you know what? Seeing Manny standing there in the kitchen, all dressed up and ready to go, suddenly made me lose my appetite for breakfast. And so, instead of eating, Manny and I sat across from each other at the kitchen table over coffee and hatched a plan of action.
“It seems to me there are three ways we can go. One, we catch him in the act. Unlikely, from what I’ve read and what you’ve told me. Two, we pick up his trail via breadcrumbs he leaves around. And three, we find someone to roll over on him.”
“That is all very true, Charlie Floyd. As for your number one, let me tell you a story. It is not my story, but it is one told to me by a police officer in New Jersey who became all too familiar with Francis Hoyt. There were a number of robberies in a very wealthy neighborhood in his town. All of them bore the unmistakable imprint of Francis Hoyt. This, by the way, was before he went to prison, before he changed his m.o. So, the detective on the case managed to convince the local chief of police to assign a team of officers to stakeout the neighborhood one evening, thinking they would catch Francis Hoyt in the act. It was a Thursday evening and for the past three Thursday evenings Francis Hoyt had broken and entered houses, making off with hundreds and thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry. That, as you know, Charlie Floyd, constitutes a pattern. Human beings are creatures of habit and they assumed that since Francis Hoyt is human he would strike again on a Thursday evening. And so, a dozen or more police officers were positioned throughout a twelve-block radius. The night passed quietly, seemingly without incident. There were no signs of any illegal activity. Evidently, or so they believed, Francis Hoyt had moved on to greener pastures. And yet, the next morning three different homeowners reported to the authorities that their houses had been broken into and that all together almost a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of jewelry was missing. The homes were all within that twelve-block radius where the police were waiting for Francis Hoyt to appear.”
“Jesus H. Christ. What is this guy, the Invisible Man?”
“No, Charlie Floyd, Francis Hoyt is no superhero and he does not have super powers. This is just one example of how good he is at what he does, how meticulous and adept he is.”
“Which brings up something you said early on. The part about Hoyt spending time in the can. I’m afraid I didn’t get through all the paperwork you handed me last night, so I didn’t quite make it up to that point in his career. What was that all about?”
“It was the one time he did not work alone. That is what did him in.”
“The story, Manny. The story.”
“Francis Hoyt became involved with a New York City fence who was connected to the mob. The mob was, of course, in due time informed of his amazing exploits and naturally they came to admire not only his style but also his remarkable productivity. They asked him to mentor two of their own people. At first, Francis Hoyt wisely refused. But it did not take long for him to realize that it was not in his best interest to refuse the entreaties of the mob, to bite the hand that was feeding him, so to speak. And so finally, albeit reluctantly, he gave in to their demand.
“He agreed to take along two young thugs on one of his jobs, to tutor them in the fine art of high-end burglary. Unfortunately, he was not aware that one of them arrived armed. As I have mentioned, Francis Hoyt himself never carries much more than a screwdriver and a flashlight, neither of which he would ever use as a weapon. However, on this particular night something went terribly wrong. If he had been alone there is little if any chance the homeowners would have known he was on the premises, but having two unskilled thugs with him, well, it was inevitable that one of them would clumsily announce their presence. Perhaps he knocked something over. Or stumbled. Or spoke in a voice louder than a whisper. In any case, the owner of the house must have heard something and he came upstairs where he found them in the bedroom, just as they were helping themselves to the contents of his wife’s jewelry box. He grabbed for a shotgun he kept in the closet. There was a struggle. One of the men with Francis Hoyt panicked, pulled out his revolver and shot the poor fellow.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“There is no doubt in my mind that if Francis Hoyt had been alone he would not have been heard. But even if he had been he would simply have made his escape, with or without the jewelry. No one would have been injured. Fortunately, the wound was not fatal, but upon hearing the sound of the pistol going off, the man’s wife, who was still downstairs, set off the alarm and within moments the police arrived. The two men with Francis Hoyt panicked. While he went out the window they ran downstairs and went out the backdoor. In less than an hour the police tracked two of them down. They arrested them and one of them not only implicated Francis Hoyt but also provided them with enough information so that they could find him and arrest him as well. They also agreed to testify against him for a lighter sentence. At first, they tried to throw the blame on him for the shooting, but the homeowner knew exactly who had pulled the trigger and that it was not Francis Hoyt. But now, for the first time in his life, the police could make a case against him. He was tried and convicted because, as you know, he was held responsible for the shooting even though he did not pull the trigger. He spent almost two years in prison for that offense.”
“That’s not a lot of time for manslaughter.”
“It was a first offense and although Francis Hoyt had been arrested several times he had never been convicted of anything, so he had a clean record.”
“Obviously, his time in the slammer did nothing to convince him to go on the straight and narrow path.”
“No, it did not. When he was finally released on parole, he swore he would never rob again. But that was a lie. Instead, he simply changed his modus operandi. He gave up his plan of breaking into homes at dinnertime. His days of stealing jewelry were behind him. He began a whole new career, a career that has been so successful he has never been apprehended.”
“And we’re going to change that, aren’t we, Manny?”
“Yes, Charlie Floyd, we are most certainly going to change that.”
Francis Hoyt
I’ve been to prison and, news flash, I don’t want to go back. Yeah, been there, done that.
That didn’t mean when I got out I was going to stop doing what I do. It just meant I was going to learn how to do it better. Only a fool or an insane person doesn’t learn from his mistakes, and I may be many things but fool or insane person isn’t among them.
Besides, why give up something you’re so damn good at? Something that makes you stand apart from everyone else. Something that gives you…status. Hey, that’s what America’s all about, isn’t it? Excellence. Being the best you can be. Winning. Making money. That’s it in a nutshell. Being the best and money. That’s how people judge you. That’s how we judge ourselves. Isn’t that in the Declaration of Independence? Yeah, we learned that in school. “Life, libe
rty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Stealing shit makes me happy. I’m just following what the Founding Fathers wanted me to do.
So, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going straight, not that I was going to tell them that. I sat there in front of that parole board and lied my ass off.
“Yes, sir, I know what I did was wrong. I know I hurt so many people and I’m sorry for it. Real sorry. I know I’m capable of being a better man. I am a better man. There is no way I ever want to see the inside of a jail again.”
What a load of shit. Hey, can you see me putting on a suit and tie and going to a fucking office every day? Yeah, right. That wasn’t going to happen. Stealing was what I did and what I did good. Now I’d just have to learn how to do it even better.
The problem was this: how to keep taking other people’s shit while at the same time minimizing the possibility of someone coming in on me while I’m in the act. That’s what happened when I hooked up with those two fuckin’ mob clowns. Amateurs. They fucked up and I paid the price. Not once, in all the years I’d been doing this, even when I was first starting out, did I ever call attention to myself and run the risk of being seen. That kid who came out of her room that night, well, I couldn’t help that. Shit happens, right? But even then, no harm no foul. You know why? Because I was prepared for things going wrong. I’d gone over every possible contingency in my head. Nothing was going to take me by surprise. There was nothing I didn’t anticipate. I knew chances were someday I’d get caught in the act, but I knew I’d keep my cool and deal with it. Not those mental defectives. Even after I did everything I could to train them they still didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. And dammit, I knew they’d screw up. But in the end, it was me who screwed up by letting them tag along. I didn’t have a choice. They had me by the short hairs. I needed the mob to fence my swag. Besides, you don’t want to cross people like that or you’ll find yourself a bloated body floating in the East River, or dumped in the Jersey or Florida swamp. So, against my better judgment, I took them along. I paid the price.
Second Story Man Page 3